Obama “reframing” speech boils down to Reagan’s 1982 argument

posted at 10:01 am on June 14, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

Barack Obama will give yet another speech in which he offers yet another “pivot” to jobs and the economy. Oddly, for an address that the White House and Obama campaign are pushing so hard, they’re also trying mightily to tamp down expectations at the same time. ABC News calls this an attempt to “hit a reset button”:

President Obama will use a speech in Ohio today effectively to hit a reset button on his re-election campaign, following a stretch of bad economic news and messaging missteps that have shaken Democrats’ confidence and caused some allies to sound the alarm.

At a community college outside Cleveland, Obama will seek to frame the economic debate with presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney, casting the November election as a stark choice rather than a referendum on his record. He will also warn that a President Romney would doom themiddle class.

“Gov. Romney and his allies in Congress believe that if you simply take away regulations and cut taxes by trillions of dollars, the market will solve all our problems on its own,” said a campaign official describing the arc of Obama’s speech. “The President believes the economy grows not from the top down, but from the middle class up, and he has an economic plan to do that.”

Even this, though, is the same plan that Obama has followed all of his term: government-side stimulus, higher regulations, and class warfare. White House sources have been warning all week not to expect anything new. Frankly, no one expects anything new at this point anyway. The GOP sent out an e-mail with a raft of statistics on previous “major addresses” by Obama on the economy, gleaned through searches of the White House website. They comprise 10 different speeches in almost four years, with almost 50,000 words in the aggregate … and today will add zero new ideas to the mix.

But that’s actually the point. Obama isn’t giving a speech today to offer new ideas, as James Carville and most Democrats have been urging after three years of economic malaise. He’s trying to take a page out of the Ronald Reagan playbook and argue that America needs to “stay the course” rather than take a new direction on economic policy — and leadership. In my column today for The Fiscal Times, I analyze the differences between 1982, when Reagan made his “stay the course” argument, and 2012 – and why Obama can’t win this argument:

Obama has had nearly four years for his policies to work, and they haven’t produced significant job creation, nor economic prosperity. By this time in the Reagan presidency, the US had produced five straight quarters of GDP growth of 6 percent or more, including three quarters above 8 percent. In contrast, Obama’s policies haven’t produced a quarter of growth of even 4 percent in his entire term, and the highest-performing quarter for Obama in the past two years barely hit 3 percent. …

Even on the jobless rate, the context between Reagan, Bush, and Obama diverge – and not to Obama’s favor. While unemployment spiked dramatically under Reagan, it didn’t result in an outflow of workers from the workforce. The civilian population participation rate actually went up from 63.9 percent at the start of Reagan’s term to 64.2 percent at the midterms. By the election in 1984, it rose to 64.5 percent, and rose rapidly to 66.2 percent by the end of Reagan’s second term. In Bush’s first term, the rate went from 67.2 percent — nearly its historical peak – to 65.8 percent, and ended in his second term at 65.7 percent, when Obama took the reins.

In contrast, Obama’s policies have resulted in a historic exodus from the workforce. By the time of the recovery, four months after the passage of Obama’s stimulus bill, the unemployment rate was 9.5 percent and the participation rate still at 65.7 percent.

Three years later, the unemployment rate has dipped to 8.2 percent, but the participation rate has actually dropped below the level seen during Reagan’s “stay the course” argument to 63.8 percent. That actually represents an improvement from the previous month, which hit a 30-year low at 63.6 percent. The only reason the unemployment rate isn’t in double digits is because millions of former workers have despaired of finding work to the point where they no longer count in the statistics.

Reagan had been in office less than two years when he argued that America needed to “stay the course,” and even though joblessness skyrocketed higher, people hadn’t lost hope of finding a job. In fact, even while unemployment spiked, more people entered the workforce than when Reagan took office. The exact opposite is true for Obama, and he’s had three full years of “recovery” to get the economy going. America’s workforce is in despair now, and that makes a “four more years!” argument almost a sick joke.

Better off today than you were four years ago? That’s a tricky question for the president to answer. He has struggled recently to articulate an economic message that resonates with voters — a dynamic amplified last week in the wake of disappointing employment numbers and Obama’s maladroit declaration that the private sector is “doing fine.”

So rather than offer specific new proposals for four more years, Obama today is likely to dwell on the recession he inherited from his predecessor, Republican George W. Bush, according to Reuters. The wire service based its reporting on conversations with unidentified Democrats “familiar with the preparations for the address” at Tri-C.

The putative importance of deficit spending has been a doctrinal keystone of the administration. It gave us the trillion dollar stimulus program that held unemployment below 8 percent. At least it gave us the trillion dollar stimulus program. Remember, Mr. President, you didn’t want to let a crisis go to waste?

Obama’s blaming his predecessor for his own record as his first time comes to a close is incredibly unbecoming. Listen to his tone in the video. The whining makes him unlikable. But it is not just the tone that is off.

His comments are ineffective. It’s too soon to rewrite history. We know he is wildly stretching the truth. It is almost to the point where, as Mary McCarthy said of Lillian Hellman, every word he says is false, including “and” and “the.”

That argument was effective … in 2008. It failed in 2010, something that most media analysts forget; Democrats accused Republicans of wanting to bring back Bush’s policies in the midterms — and got buried in a historic landslide. If “stay the course” is all Obama has, he may face the same fate in November.

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So rather than offer specific new proposals for four more years, Obama today is likely to dwell on the recession he inherited from his predecessor, Republican George W. Bush, according to Reuters.

To paraphrase Newt from Meet the Press a few weeks ago — “At this point in the 1984 election, President Reagan was NOT complaining about the mess Carter left him. President Reagan was too busy recounting his successes.”

That argument was effective … in 2008. It failed in 2010, something that most media analysts forget; Democrats accused Republicans of wanting to bring back Bush’s policies in the midterms — and got buried in a historic landslide. If “stay the course” is all Obama has, he may face the same fate in November.

The most salient point is right there.

I can’t comprehend what Mr. Obama, Democrats, liberals and pollsters feel is so different at this juncture. Nothing has changed. In fact the economy has gotten worse, debt has increased, spending is out of control and the fundamental problems with unemployment and jobs have not been addressed.

No amount of scare-mongering about Romney, Bush, The Tea Party, “Extremists” or the Easter Bunny will change the facts. After four years this President has no accomplishments to tout, a terrible record and no new ideas.

“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain barky speaking. We’ve reached our cruising altitude of 50,000 feet. From this altitude, out the left side of the aircraft you can see generalities and framing statements. Our flight attendants will be through the cabin shortly with a complimentary selection of buzzwords, platitudes and clichés. We also have a selection of banality, inanity and vapidity for purchase. Correct ‘change’ is appreciated. Now sit back, relax and should anything go wrong, well the last pilot left the cockpit a mess, so don’t blame me.”

The middle class did better under Bush than Obama. In fact, only the rich and the poor have done well under Obama. From Michael Hirsh of the National Journal:

“Bottom line: he lost the middle class…Indeed, as economist Emmanuel Saez has written, the wealthiest one percent in the country have actually made out better, in percentage terms, during Obama’s “recovery” of 2009-2010 than they did from 2002-07 under George W. Bush.

Judging from recent polls, the perception of the president is that he’s spending a lot more time coddling the very poor (the uninsured) and the very rich (Wall Street) than he is the middle class. Obama spent a huge portion of his political capital on Obamacare, and almost none on helping underwater middle-class mortgage holders. Nor did he deploy, in a big way, the enormous leverage he had over Wall Street and Main Street both to induce more lending and hiring.”

Obama lost the middle class vote by 20 points in 2008. There is every reason to expect him to lose it by more in 2012 and his class warfare is a turn-off.

Oh please . . . this guy is lost in a thick fog without a compass or a map. All of these political pundits need to come out of their self induced comas and admit the disaster that has been thrust upon us by a majority of “enlightened” voters.

“You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

i do with the Rs would call Obama/press on the utter fallacy that is the ‘trickle down’ icon of the Left.

Nothing is more trickle down that barry deciding to spend X Trillions of dollars believing that the money will trickle down thru all the spenders in the economy. Keynes is the definition of trickle down.

the entire argue has to be is barry better at industrial planning that a ‘free’ market. The answer is seen in europe.

Kings and emperors used to think they could control the destiny of their dominions….our Founders were smarter than that. But we’ve fallen back in history

If O equalized the pay of all govt workers at $25K he could hire more people and get employment down. So instead of paying himself $400K, he could pay himself and 15 others $25K – equalize the outcomes — putting theory into practice !!

Your guess is as good as mine as to what percentage of what was collected the “remaining money” might be. Obviously, this is the most inefficient means of stimulating the economy possible, but it is based on the Marxist principle of redistributing wealth.

It was reasonable for Reagan to ask Americans to stay the course. He had a plan that would work. Fine if Barry wants to ask Americans to stay the course but he has yet to offer a plan that will work for America. For his left friends, maybe, but for America as a country, no way.

Anyone listening to this man, who still has two functional brain cells and hasn’t been indoctrinated into Marxism should understand what Obama is saying here.

Marxism is predicated upon a Command and Control Central Committee Zero Sum Economy. In other words, they are top down economies. Obama is straight up arguing that Mitt Romney does not believe in the Marxist Economic Theory.

Capitalist economies do not grow from the top down, they do not grow from the top down because innovation and inspiration never happen on command. Capitalist economies grow from the middle because that’s where innovation occurs. Innovation can almost be defined as the guy in the middle finding a new and unique path to the top.

No Mitt Romney may not be the ideal Conservative, but he definitely is not a Marxist. If his track record at Bain Capital tells you anything at all, it is that Mitt Romney understands how to do something that no Marxists has ever managed to do using the Marxist Economic Theory.

That something is, to earn a profit in the Private Sector without that profit coming from the Public Sector. Mitt Romney knows how the Capitalist Economic system works and he knows what it takes to create wealth, and through the creation of wealth, JOBS.

In 2007 the “Bush Roofing Co.” fixed my roof. a Reid and Pelosi did the actual work. In 2009 there were two bad leaks so I paid the “Obama Roofing Co.” a trillion dollars to fix it. In 2012 there were now forty leaks in the roof and I confronted the Obama company about it. They told me that the roof was actually worse than they realized, blaming the previous roofing company, and said if I gave them another trillion dollars and four more weeks to work on it, the roof will be good as new.

That something is, to earn a profit in the Private Sector without that profit coming from the Public Sector.

SWalker on June 14, 2012 at 10:50 AM

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I believe that Bain Capital did use some tax credits and government programs to improve its bottom line by reducing tax expense. Would you not call that earning profit from the Public Sector benefits available?
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Any corporately organized business that did not use the tax credits available to it would be forgoing a benefit for its shareholders.

What Obama and the left don’t understand is that jobs are a byproduct of creating wealth, not the other way around.

Obama and leftists believe that the purpose of companies, etc. in the capitalist system is to produce good-paying jobs. And that if you create a job, that is the creation of wealth. Therefore, in this belief, if you create a gov’t job or use gov’t money to fund a job in the private sector, you are “creating wealth”. They simply do not comprehend, indeed seem incapable of comprehending, that this is not actually creating a job or creating wealth – it is merely transferring assets from one place to another.

But, they do not see that because they believe there is only a set amount of money and therefore if you have $10, it is $10 they can’t ever have. Which is why they hate the rich so much. They believe that because person “a” has $$, then person “b” can’t have money. They don’t understand that person “a”‘s success does not in any way prevent person “b” from likewise being successful.

therefore, in their minds, everything is wealth distribution. And if they just figure out the correct formula of moving the money around, then everyone will have an even amount and be happy.

they simply do not understand the concept of “creating wealth”. It is all zero sum to them.

I believe that Bain Capital did use some tax credits and government programs to improve its bottom line by reducing tax expense. Would you not call that earning profit from the Public Sector benefits available?
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Any corporately organized business that did not use the tax credits available to it would be forgoing a benefit for its shareholders.

ExpressoBold on June 14, 2012 at 11:01 AM

Not paying money earned to the gov’t (by way of taking advantage of tax laws, etc) is not the same thing as earning a “profit” from the gov’t. The latter would be a company like Solyandra that earned whatever money it earned before going bankrupt directly from gov’t subsidies. It did not actually create any wealth, just took money from the gov’t.

I prefer to think of it as a physics term. When derived from the bottom of a constant gravitation well, all thing that go up, must come back down. In terms of a parabolic trajectory, a the “Arc” represents the portion of the helix delineating nadir from zenith. The apogee representing the highest point of the “arc” before the projectile begins it’s decent.

Controlled flight’s are not ballistic trajectories, Obama now appears to be on a ballistic trajectory that has reached apogee and is now in the uncontrolled decent phase of it’s parabolic arc.

“Gov. Romney and his allies in Congress believe that if you simply take away regulations and cut taxes by trillions of dollars, the market will solve all our problems on its own,” said a campaign official describing the arc of Obama’s speech.

Try reading Smith, Bastien, Milton & Hayek, then come back and tell us WHY the market can’t solve the problems on its own, jerkwad.

I despair when I think over 40% of the voters in this country could vote for this complete failure.

Someone, anyone explain to me how a person that is not breathing methane could do so?

jdsbengaltiger on June 14, 2012 at 10:15 AM

Thats easy to answer. Over 40% of this country is getting their share of “Obama’s Stash”. It is in their best interest to vote this complete failure back into office. If Romney gets in then I suspect they know they will have to get up off the couch and get a job. The will put their own self-interest over the country’s any day. This is why sweeping reforms need to be enacted the minute President Romney is sworn into office, that and uniform voter ID laws.

That something is, to earn a profit in the Private Sector without that profit coming from the Public Sector.

SWalker on June 14, 2012 at 10:50 AM

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I believe that Bain Capital did use some tax credits and government programs to improve its bottom line by reducing tax expense. Would you not call that earning profit from the Public Sector benefits available?
.
Any corporately organized business that did not use the tax credits available to it would be forgoing a benefit for its shareholders.

ExpressoBold on June 14, 2012 at 11:01 AM

No I would not. For the simple reason that Bain Capital was a net wealth creator. I’m guessing from your comment that you have some serious misconceptions on exactly what Tax Credits are, or how they work.

A Tax Credit is not money that the Government gives you out of the public largess, it is not other peoples taxes spread around to share the wealth.

A Tax Credit is monies not extricated from a corporate entity, i.e. a designated percentage of an otherwise accrued Tax Burden that is canceled out and not paid by the corporation or company. It does not represent moneies taken from tax payers and given to a corporation, but instead a reduction of taxes taken from a corporation or company.

I’m guessing from your comment that you have some serious misconceptions on exactly what Tax Credits are, or how they work.

SWalker on June 14, 2012 at 11:21 AM

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You’d be guessing wrong but your overly officious explanation leads me to guess that you are a CPA, tax lawyer, economist or just plain think of yourself as The Divine Gift to Accounting. There is no need to gold-plate the concept of the government (call it the Federal Government, just for grins) forgoing some tax revenue in the form of “tax credits” (which are taken on the filing entity’s tax form against computed tax owed). By forgoing some revenue, the government is, indeed, subsidizing profit (by reducing an expense) from the Public Sector.
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Please don’t take offense, I’m just trying to quicken the argument discussion about what constitutes “profit from the Public Sector.” Tax credits certainly do act as subsidies and incentives, thus the rabid attempt to turn food into automobile fuel.

Please don’t take offense, I’m just trying to quicken the argument discussion about what constitutes “profit from the Public Sector.” Tax credits certainly do act as subsidies and incentives, thus the rabid attempt to turn food into automobile fuel.

ExpressoBold on June 14, 2012 at 11:42 AM

So, when the gov’t does not take money from a business, it is a subsidy?

I believe that Bain Capital did use some tax credits and government programs to improve its bottom line by reducing tax expense. Would you not call that earning profit from the Public Sector benefits available?

ExpressoBold on June 14, 2012 at 11:01 AM

Nope, it means they got to keep more of their money instead of the Government taking it.

Unless you have specific information about programs they allegedly profited from.

Anytime he is off the teleprompter he can hardly string one sentence together in a coherent fashion.
He stutters around aimlessly simply because he has no idea what to do other than voting “present” which is his specialty.

He was a junior Senator of no accomplishment, other than being elected, before he was elected as potus and he has proven that is exactly all he was. At every juncture in his life he has been elected to “positions” then accomplished nothing. What did he accomplish at Columbia? At Harvard? In Illinois? The U.S. Senate?
Nothing. Oh he made it to all those places then he did absolutely nothing of consequence. Just like now.

The MSM says he is likeable. Really? In what way is that. The MSM way I guess.
I find nothing about the guy likeable. Obviously the MSM likes a arrogant, opportunistic, narcissistic pathological liar.

Obama is a totally fabricated figment of the MSN’s imagination.
“Smartest man in the room, The Great Orator, oh please, what a load of B.S.